Americans Are Convinced Toyota, Honda, Nissan Lead The Way On EVs: New Survey

Years of hybrid cars and "electrified" marketing terms have people convinced they're ahead.

2023 Toyota Prius Prime Plug-In Hybrid

Iulian Dnistran

By: Iulian Dnistran

Jun 12, 2024 at 11:00am ET

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BEV, PHEV, HEV, NEV and FCEV are all acronyms for some sort of electrified vehicle, but only one of them refers to all-electric cars. That would be BEV, which stands for battery electric vehicle, whereas all the others have some form of helper, be it a combustion engine or something else.

Furthermore, automakers using “hybridized” and “electrified” every chance they get to describe a car that–in truth–has an electric motor and battery washed away some of the meaning of an electric car.

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Electrified doesn't mean all-electric

Automakers have been using every trick in the book to sell as many cars as possible since day one. Now, with the push toward electrification, some brands have turned to catchy words like "hybridized" and "electrified" to lure people into the world of electric cars, only to offer some sort of combustion engine, too.

We knew it, and you probably knew it, too, but now there’s a survey that uses hard data to show that car manufacturers’ marketing efforts paid off. They managed to fool people into thinking that slapping a badge containing “EV” on the back of their cars made them all-electric.

Toyota C-HR HEV (hybrid electric vehicle) badge

According to New Automotive’s opinion poll of drivers’ views on the EV transition in six countries around the world, the overwhelming majority of people think that an ”electrified” vehicle means “an electric vehicle powered 100% by a battery.” Over 70% of respondents in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Japan, India and Indonesia answered like this, whereas far fewer people gave the true answer.

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At the same time, however, the overwhelming majority of respondents said that a vehicle that’s powered 100% by a battery counts as an electric vehicle, which goes to show the scale of confusion among consumers.

Working on the percentage game, where carmakers usually report big increases in sales but bury the actual number of EVs sold in the footnotes, the poll revealed that this tactic also worked. In the US, respondents said that almost all car manufacturers sold more EVs than they actually did, with only Renault (which doesn’t sell cars here) and Mercedes-Benz getting lower estimates from the public.

What "electrified" and "electric cars" are, according to New Automotive's survey

The same extensive poll revealed that consumers in the target six countries would avoid buying a car from a company that’s associated with lobbying against EV policies and that they’d like manufacturers to be more supportive of the switch to EVs.

The majority of drivers in the UK (58%), France (51%), India (86%) and Indonesia (83%) want their own car brand to support policies to increase EV sales and phase out combustion car sales. In contrast, in the United States, that percentage is 47%. Moreover, 23% of Americans said they want their car brand to oppose such policies.

People's best guesses as to how many EVs carmakers sell

When it comes to Toyota, a car company famous for its foot-dragging approach to full electrification among EV enthusiasts and for selling only one all-electric car in the U.S., drivers across all countries surveyed tend to think that the Japanese automaker should aim for a higher percentage of EV sales by 2030 compared to its current plan of about 30% or 3.5 million EVs. On average, US drivers said Toyota should aim for 38% EV sales annually by 2030, while respondents in Japan said the company should aim for 52% EV sales.

“These results should give many of the largest car manufacturers pause for thought,” said Ben Nelmes, CEO of New Automotive. “Motorists are increasingly conscious of the impact that cars have on the environment, and they want cleaner cars. Advocating for climate policies to be weakened or watered down not only carries environmental risks but reputational and financial risks, too,” he added.

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The full survey can be found here. Dynata polled a representative sample of 1,000 drivers in six countries.

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